Bones of the Lost(49)

I had to think for a minute. Recalled from my work at JPAC that BDA meant battle damage assessment.

Hightower ordered Gunnery Sergeant Werner Sharp to interview all participants and reported the incident to battalion HQ. Interviewees told Sharp that the drive to Sheyn Bagh had taken thirty minutes. The convoy of five Humvees and one seven-ton armored truck arrived at sunset. Two of the Humvees were augmented with M2 .50-caliber heavy machine guns. Though historically a friendly village, intel had reported probable weapons caches and explosives stores. The platoon was on high alert.

Sheyn Bagh was bordered on three sides by a wall and on the fourth by a steep hill. The front wall had two gaps for passage from the road to the village, one at each end.

I glanced at the NCIS photos. The place looked like a scene from a Ray Bradbury novel.

Back to the summary.

Light was fading. Three Humvees pulled inside the compound, and two set up outside the wall, one near each opening. The seven-ton positioned between them.

Fire teams from second and third squads began banging on doors and rousting occupants, starting at opposite ends and working toward the middle. First squad deployed to protect the vehicles and to provide covering fire to the searchers.

Lieutenant Gross, armed with an M16 and an M9 Beretta, remained in front to command the operation and to provide additional covering fire. Gross directed Corporal Grant Eggers, a SAW gunner with first squad, to also remain at the front with his light machine gun.

The first house entered was near the end closest to the lieutenant. Two AFG males were taken outside and ordered to remain in place. The searchers found nothing and advanced to an adjoining house. At that moment an explosion rocked the area next to one of the Humvees. The explosion sounded like an RPG. Two marines near the Humvee were hit.

Automatic-rifle fire from the hillside began kicking up dirt at the front of the compound. Lieutenant Gross screamed “contact front” and “engage, engage.” He yelled to the Ma Deuce gunners to sweep the hillside. They tore up the hill and Eggers unleashed several bursts from his M249. Eggers at that point heard cries of “Allah Akbar” from his right and heard the lieutenant open fire. He turned and saw the two LNs from the first house twitching and staggering at an angle between the lieutenant and the house, in a direction away from where the RPG had hit.

The shorthand was all coming back. AFG was for Afghan and LN meant local national.

When Eggers saw the LNs, they were fifteen to twenty meters from the lieutenant, spinning sideways from the impact of the rounds. As they collapsed facedown, Lieutenant Gross ejected the clip from his M16 and jammed in another. Eggers turned to fire more bursts at the hill, but no enemy returned fire. The .50-cal gunners were still raking the hillside. Lieutenant Gross yelled to cease fire, and it got quiet.

Lieutenant Gross ordered everyone back to their vehicles and he and the medic moved to the wounded. Eggers checked the two LNs and both were dead. He did a cursory search and found no weapons or explosives on or near the bodies.

The medic declared the wounded stable but in need of medical attention. Deciding transport by vehicle would be quicker than waiting for a medevac chopper, Lieutenant Gross aborted the mission, had the wounded loaded into the seven-ton, and sped back to Delaram. The dead Afghans were left for the villagers to deal with.

I stopped reading to stand and stretch, and to contemplate what chaotic hell those minutes must have been. Then I turned to the gunny’s assessment of the facts. Basically, Sharp had found the following.

Only Gross and Eggers saw the Afghans get shot, and Eggers did not see the first several seconds. Initially, the two were cooperative and nonthreatening. Only Gross and Eggers heard the men yell anything. Gross claimed the Afghans rushed him. Only Gross shot at them. It was undisputed that the men were unarmed.

The gunny paid particular attention to the statement given by Eggers, and summarized it in some detail:

Eggers was upset and thought both LNs had been shot in the back. Thought they were running from the RPG blast, not toward Gross. Why empty a 30-round clip at these guys? The hostile fire was coming from the hillside. Eggers thought he recognized the younger LN from prior sweeps of the vil. The kid had seemed friendly. Villagers had told him that bad guys would infiltrate the vil, fire at patrols, then melt away. Eggers was sure the dead were noncombatants.

I read the statement by the company commander, Wayne Hightower, but learned nothing new. A file note by an NCIS special agent quoted Hightower as saying he did not intend to play Captain Medina to Gross’s Lieutenant Calley, and that he’d made a full report to his superiors.

From the statement by battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Walter Roberts, I learned that Roberts had informed the commanding officer of RCT 6, Colonel Craig Andrews. Roberts had also transferred Lieutenant Gross from command of his platoon to a staff assignment at battalion H&S Company. Headquarters and support. Roberts commented that the Gross case had the potential to develop into a major incident at the governmental level. He recommended that the inquiry proceed “by the book.”